I think that the risk to all the progress we've made was at stake in the election because not just the president-elect but a lot of members of Congress, including now the Speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader, have said that their principal agenda was to undo a lot of this progress. But as I've been talking about over the last several days when it comes to health care, the gains that we've made are there. Twenty million people have health insurance that didn't have it before. The uninsured rate is the lowest it's ever been.
Barack ObamaWhat I consistently say to young people - I say it in the United States, but I'll say it here in Germany and across Europe: Do not take for granted our systems of government and our way of life. I think there is a tendency, because we have lived in an era that has been largely stable and peaceful, at least in advanced countries, where living standards have generally gone up, there is a tendency I think to assume that that's always the case.
Barack ObamaThese are young people who made mistakes that aren't that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made, we have a tendency sometimes to almost take for granted or think it's normal that so many young people end up in our criminal justice system. It's not normal. ... What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things.
Barack ObamaA number of countries, including some who have loudly criticized the NSA, privately acknowledge that America has special responsibilities as the world's only superpower, that our intelligence capabilities are critical to meeting these responsibilities, and that they themselves have relied on the information we obtain to protect their own people.
Barack Obama